And on the fifth day, I rested

I spent the last few days in a hectic state of musical bliss
that involved traveling 350 miles, watching nine bands (and being
somewhat blown away by one of them while stumbling across another
great local group to boot), interviewing a rock star, celebrating
the awesomeness that was Record Store Day and hitting up the
Experience Music Project’s annual Pop Conference.

I am taking the next 24 hours off to recuperate, but in the
meantime here is a listing of some of what you’ll be reading about
the rest of the week here:

Portugal. The Man is
the best band you aren’t listening to. Find out why I just made
that bold declaration in the upcoming review of Portugal. The Man’s
show at the Crocodile with H is For
Hellgate and
Alligators

Death Cab For Cutie
is playing in Spokane Friday night at Gonzaga with Ra Ra Riot and
Cold War Kids. Ear Candy chatted with Death Cab’s Jason McGeer
about headlining Bumbershoot, the band’s new EP and the prospect of
unreleased Death Cab being released from the Death Cab vault.

The Moondoggies
played a few free shows in Seattle during the weekend. All three
were completely different from one another in atmosphere and sound.
Read about two of those sets soon.

The Pitchfork lovers orgasm double
bill of The Black Kids and Mates of
State played Neumos Friday. Their opener, a band out of
San Francisco called Judgment Day, took me by
surprise.

Saturday was Record Store
Day and I felt like a kid on Christmas at the Queen Anne
Easy Street Records purchasing lots of limited-edition candy for my
ears in the form of some great vinyl.

Saturday was also the third day of
EMP’s Pop Conference. Unfortunately I was only
able to attend on day, but man the things I learned and the
panelists I heard speak were fantastic. My brain hurts (in a good
way) just thinking about all the cool conversations that I had the
privilege to listen to during my 7 hours at PopCon 2009.

The weekend was capped off by
dropping by El Croazon for a late-night set by Texas’ own
The Toadies. I wasn’t able to stay for the whole
show, but during the 75 minutes I was there they played almost
everything off "Rubberneck."

So that’s what you’ll be reading about from me pretty soon. How
soon? Well, that all depends on how much free time I have to write
and how much I can write without getting exhausted again. In fact,
I’m getting pretty tired right now just thinking about writing all
of this so I am going to stop writing now.